Byzantine advice

[Bureaucrat Stalin]

Hey all, returned to SS again recently and am trying to get to grips with the eastern Romans.

iv played a few games so far all of which have ended one way or the other no later than the 40s (plague killing basically everyone in Constantinople, plunging my already dire economy even deeper being my favorite so far, but a definite thumbs up for the Bulgar uprising too)

lots of cool new mods and its a great game with them but some pointers would be helpful on the following:

1) Economy. This is my biggest problem by far. I usually end up with a lot of settlements reconquering Asia minor and everything south of the Danube but my economy every time has been nothing but fits and starts. rarely i get a good income and get to develop a hand full of cities (focusing on the capital, Thessolonika, Iconium, Belgrade, Athens then the other towns, is that a decent priority order?) but its quite slow and theres lots of down time. what should i focus on at the start? maybe a build order suggestion too

2) should i retake the Balkans first or Asia minor? i always have the co Emp running round re taking the west before Hungary or Venice come knocking. but usually i send the emperor east to deal with the Turks. what do you prioritise first?

3) Corinth. should i develop this or convert it? its not ideally placed for a recruitment centre but it seems a hell of a shame to waste the castle. on this too, a few games now iv converted quite a few castles into towns, good idea or bad idea in certain areas?

4) how do you manage your top guys? centralised recruitment is cool in principle but with a large empire to cover it seems challenging. How do you manage your recruitment to conquests?

or any advice you'd feel help full on a good strat for this faction

thanks.

[recentiy03]

Hey all, returned to SS again recently and am trying to get to grips with the eastern Romans.

iv played a few games so far all of which have ended one way or the other no later than the 40s (plague killing basically everyone in Constantinople, plunging my already dire economy even deeper being my favorite so far, but a definite thumbs up for the Bulgar uprising too)

lots of cool new mods and its a great game with them but some pointers would be helpful on the following:

1) Economy. This is my biggest problem by far. I usually end up with a lot of settlements reconquering Asia minor and everything south of the Danube but my economy every time has been nothing but fits and starts. rarely i get a good income and get to develop a hand full of cities (focusing on the capital, Thessolonika, Iconium, Belgrade, Athens then the other towns, is that a decent priority order?) but its quite slow and theres lots of down time. what should i focus on at the start? maybe a build order suggestion too

2) should i retake the Balkans first or Asia minor? i always have the co Emp running round re taking the west before Hungary or Venice come knocking. but usually i send the emperor east to deal with the Turks. what do you prioritise first?

3) Corinth. should i develop this or convert it? its not ideally placed for a recruitment centre but it seems a hell of a shame to waste the castle. on this too, a few games now iv converted quite a few castles into towns, good idea or bad idea in certain areas?

4) how do you manage your top guys? centralised recruitment is cool in principle but with a large empire to cover it seems challenging. How do you manage your recruitment to conquests?

or any advice you'd feel help full on a good strat for this faction

thanks.

1. Economic advice is really situational and what I do largely depends on what threats are looming and how ambitious I'm feeling. It also depends on whether or not you're playing with BGR. If you're playing with BGR then it takes a long time to get your economy going to the point where you can comfortably field an army/armies and continue to develop your cities/castles.

In my current Byzantine campaign, in which I allied with Hungary ASAP, I chose to initially focus on Anatolia. In order to gain Hungary's trust I had to give them Durazzo, although it provided a buffer from Venice, and even though I lost out on the race to Thessalonica, I grabbed Sparta, Athens and Corinth, and the move allowed me to focus on just one front. Once I allied with the Crusader States, Turkey and then later the Egyptians didn't really stand much of a chance.

As far as which cities to develop, the most important thing as the Byzantines is to upgrade the military barracks in Constantinople, in order to eventually train your most elite units. That is, once you've recovered it.

2. Up to you. Most purist will tell you to recapture the west, but that's far more difficult than appeasing the Catholics by murdering lots of Muslims while capturing cities in Anatolia and the Holy Land.

3. I have Corinth as a castle because I might eventually need it when I launch an attack on Hungary...ditto with Ajaccio and Cagliari for my ally the Pope over in Tuscanny...although I'm probably being overly cautious. However, I did turn Rhodes and Caesarra into cities. Once you've fully conquered a region then castles aren't really important unless you're using them for troop development.

4. When I get a general who has a professional training staff AND full recruitment authorization, I camp him in a castle and just let him continuously train elite troops. You need to be aware of religious levels, because certain troops can only be trained when your religious conversion is sufficient. Use lots of priests! Really, since I play with BGR, my faction leader is the one and only person who ever leads attacks...so supplying him with new troops isn't a big deal and any general with enough loyalty can provide backup.

[David93]

honestly you might just like it more if you turn BGR of.
Have you read the BGR guide? its always a big help?
personally i conquer the east and hold the western border. What a.i. are you using and what difficulty and any other sub-mods?

ohh and keep corinth it will be your biggest castle untill you capture a bigger one as the population is quite hard to increase

[Arceus]

Hey all, returned to SS again recently and am trying to get to grips with the eastern Romans.

iv played a few games so far all of which have ended one way or the other no later than the 40s (plague killing basically everyone in Constantinople, plunging my already dire economy even deeper being my favorite so far, but a definite thumbs up for the Bulgar uprising too)

lots of cool new mods and its a great game with them but some pointers would be helpful on the following:

1) Economy. This is my biggest problem by far. I usually end up with a lot of settlements reconquering Asia minor and everything south of the Danube but my economy every time has been nothing but fits and starts. rarely i get a good income and get to develop a hand full of cities (focusing on the capital, Thessolonika, Iconium, Belgrade, Athens then the other towns, is that a decent priority order?) but its quite slow and theres lots of down time. what should i focus on at the start? maybe a build order suggestion too

2) should i retake the Balkans first or Asia minor? i always have the co Emp running round re taking the west before Hungary or Venice come knocking. but usually i send the emperor east to deal with the Turks. what do you prioritise first?

3) Corinth. should i develop this or convert it? its not ideally placed for a recruitment centre but it seems a hell of a shame to waste the castle. on this too, a few games now iv converted quite a few castles into towns, good idea or bad idea in certain areas?

4) how do you manage your top guys? centralised recruitment is cool in principle but with a large empire to cover it seems challenging. How do you manage your recruitment to conquests?

or any advice you'd feel help full on a good strat for this faction

thanks.

I'm actually doing a Byzantine campaign as well, I'm too lazy to answer all your questions, but here's some

For Corinth leave it, you will need it early on to recruit units, also if I remember correctly converting require a large sum of money, its better to save that money and use it elsewhere. I usually convert any castles within my safe zone (basicially where my enemies can't attack) and build castles by my borders. I usually keep the Corinth as a castle because its geographical position is right in the middle especially when you go to war with Venice or Sicily (or both) you'll be at war in the East and West, so you're going need a good castle to train and supply your armies.

Try to build good relationships with all the Catholic factions, and focus on destroying the Turks and the other muslims factions. I made a mistake early on in my campaign by focus too much on the Balkan, and allowed the Turks to expand massively and by the time they called a jidah on me, they were able to field stack after stack, I almost lost Constantinople. So attack the Turks early on!

In beating them I usually would send my army to lightly guarded cities/castles of the enemy, take it, recruit some archers/spearmen, and move on. The AI is horrible at seige, so you only need a couple of units and you can pretty much win. I manged to kick the Turks out of Anatolia and the near east using that tactic

[Bureaucrat Stalin]

hey all thanks for the replies, i started a new campaign after posting this and have managed to do infinitly better, got asia minor, balkans and antioch and the other city south of it. i camped the co emp in corinth after unification and managed to get lots of good troops, solving previous problems. Iv been able to pay hungary and crusaders semi regularly and both have been great allies in the wars., again much easier.

My future co emp has just led the eastern army and crushed the Bulgars with ease, all much better this time around

nice to have things to learn again